WARNINGS: Dark thinking. Mild language.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Some of you might remember reading the earlier version of this fic; it's undergone a number of changes, hopefully for the better. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the earlier version, and to everyone who (hopefully) will review this one.

There are possible spoilers for the first and second seasons ("Warriors of the Ruins" and "Tiger's Battle with Destiny" in particular). There is deviation from canon regarding the exact method of resurrection for the Lost Disks, and it bears no resemblance to the canon of the third season whatsover, because I haven't been so privileged as to watch it.

Without further ado, enjoy.

You're Welcome

The tiger lay in the snow a ways from Centaur, near entirely in the night-shadow of a stand of evergreens. It seemed unaware of him, its head down and looking more so in contemplation than in sleep - in these times, there was a great deal to contemplate. It was impossible to tell its coloration.

Likely another Cabalos.

Gray Wolf had largely favored the tiger-naga hybrids; perhaps seven or eight out of ten of the Cabalos on the continent had been gathered in his territories. Now, like their other brethren, they were cut loose from their puppet strings in the aftermath of Moo's fall - to do what?

On their way back, after the quasi-army had fragmented and began for home, the three of them had again been alone for a time, then began to pick up others who drifted into their path or else openly sought it out; their entourage consisted of a good eight at last count. Two of these were young Cabalos, both bony and verging on skeletal; they had been of the seeking variety, and even if they hadn't admitted their previous employment Centaur would have guessed sooner or later. There was, for one, the way their eyes kept traveling downward to where the telltale crest would have been affixed.

And this one, as well?

When - if he returned to camp with a new arrival, Dragoon would probably have a laugh and a token protest as he had with the last two, then pitch in; Celious would do the same but without the laughter. While they were hardly accustomed to life in the northlands, some of their companions on the journey up had been, and they'd picked up enough of it to be able to feed themselves and their new set of companions fairly well. They could spare enough for one more, if they were careful.

His decision made, Centaur tilted his spear over his shoulder and began to take slow steps forward. Before long the distance between them was cut in half. The tiger still showed no sign of noticing him, though being a tiger he probably would have. Centaur stopped there and began to figure out the best form of address. He would have called a name, if he knew one, but he didn't. "Hello" or "Excuse me" sounded atrociously normal given the circumstances. For not the first time he wished he dared mimic Dragoon and lead with a "Hey, you."

The tiger's head moved. One of its eyes glinted; a bit of fur caught the moonlight. The eye was not yellow, but blue. The fur was not scaled purple, but silver.

All thought of forms of address were set aside. There was only one kind of tiger he knew with that color fur and eyes.

But he is dead. No. He died.

Several nights in a row there had been fierce debates over just what the Phoenix had brought to pass besides defeating Moo and vaporizing his emblems. Dragoon maintained that the Lost Disks had been revivified - how else to explain the sudden increase of wandering monsters? Now there always seemed to be Zuums peering around tree trunks, Jells taking fright and fleeing off the path before them. Celious countered that of course there would be more wanderers with Moo no longer there to hold them together, that you couldn't believe everything in storybooks, and that they'd not met anyone who'd definitely been subject to a resurrection. Each time, it had ended with an agreement to disagree.

They'd asked Centaur for his own opinion. He told them he wasn't sure, which was the truth. There was probable reality, and then there was stubborn dreaming. Now the part of him that knocked the dust from old storybooks and settled down for an hour of reading was proven right.

A fine way to be proven right.

Centaur briefly entertained the thought that this wasn't him after all, that it was another tiger of the same strange type - look at all the Zuums in the world. But most of the "blended" monsters had a distinct heritage from their other side - Dragoon's red coloration and taloned feet in lieu of hooves; Celious's blue and white fur and ears. The other kind, with appearance and sometimes abilities that could be attributed to influence from no existing monster, was rare. On top of this, it was whispered that his kind had originated from the other continent. It would be unlikely enough to have two of them existing around the same time, but to have both leave their home continent, and to have the one in the area once controlled by the other?

Then, if it's him, ought I not leave now?

No. His grip on his spear tightened and it was all he could do not to swing it into battle position. He most likely already knows I'm here. And the Phoenix might have resurrected him, but it couldn't be expected to improve on his original disposition. I need to discover if he is still a danger. And if by fantastic chance it is not him, surely he will know enough of recent events to understand my assumption.

"Gray Wolf," he said; it was all he could do not to either snap the two syllables together in a rush or make the pause between them interminable.

Gray Wolf turned his head slowly and got to his feet equally slowly, then stepped out of the shadows. "Centaur."

They regarded each other for a time, as they had that night after the Cabalos backed down on their leader's command, leaving them to their mockery of a duel. At least this time he wasn't grinning. Then Gray Wolf said, "What brings you here?"

Centaur wondered if this languid tone was, again, a prelude to attack. "I might well ask you the same question."

"You first."

"Was that an order?"

The snow had stopped some time ago. The winds were soft - they could barely scatter leaves, let alone obscure vision. Gray Wolf had flinched. "No," he said, languid again. "Of course not." But Centaur had seen what lay underneath. And he must have known this as well, for when next he spoke the false tone was gone. "I have no wish to fight you again."

"So we are agreed on that," Centaur replied, though he wasn't altogether certain that was true.

"It's over, isn't it."

It is not. You yourself are proof of that. "It is."

"Good." A silent moment. "They were having an excavation at Mount Cairos, last I knew." He said this with a strange defiance in his voice - daring Centaur, almost, but to do what? "Whatever it was, it happened around Cairos, didn't it?"

"So it did."

"I'm going there now," he went on, shifting from paw to paw, glancing downward like the young Cabalos. The same defiance continued to lace his words. After another moment, "I thought my brother would've gone there. I think he would've."

A brother. Centaur had assumed Gray Wolf had simply emerged from a disk, without any greater family than whoever operated the controls of the shrine.

How else could something so cold have come into being?

"You have a brother?"

"I hope I haven't had a brother."

"May I ask his name?"

"Why?"

"I might well have met him."

When he finally gave the name there was a little bit of pride along with the defiance. "Tiger of the Wind." Centaur couldn't say anything. He didn't remember the name. "You've not heard of him, have you? Not on this continent. He's got a scar," said Gray Wolf. "Right… around here." He lifted a paw and swiped it lightly over one eye.

The scar, now - he remembered the pure tiger with the scar, who had been, of all things, one of the friends of the human boy Genki. Clear-eyed Genki - I don't get it, staring downward fists clenched, I don't get how an honorable warrior becomes a bad guy. They'd parted ways with Genki still not understanding.

"They were going north," said Centaur. "It was some time ago."

Gray Wolf turned away, in the general direction of two distant groups of forest in the south; between them lay the town and its empty coliseum. "Down there, you mean…?"

"Yes."

"And you've not seen him since."

"Not since then."

He continued to stare toward the forests. "Huh."

"He would be near Cairos, if rumors are true," said Centaur. "He was with -"

"I know. I remember them."

"Then, you kn-"

Gray Wolf snapped his head back around. "Damn it, I knew."

There were certain things in life that disconcerted Centaur by their shifting, regardless of whether he'd cared for them for their own sake. Gray Wolf's nature, or his former one, was one of them. Centaur hadn't understood how anyone could be that way, how anyone could freeze inside like that, but he'd accepted its existence and here now was Gray Wolf with half-thawed words in a slip-sliding rush out from between his jaws. "If I'd just stayed dead -" He stopped, seemed to ruminate on his words for a moment, then turned as if to go into the trees.

Perhaps this is unwise - it is unwise. But I cannot listen to him say such a thing and then simply watch him go. "Wait."

"For what?"

Centaur hadn't worked out that detail yet and again said nothing, hoping that Gray Wolf's mind would create from the lack of an answer an unspoken one more impressive than anything that might be devised in reality. It seemed to work; at any rate Gray Wolf didn't leave.

The more time passed, the clearer he could distinguish the needles on the trees, the variations in the snow that had seemed at first marred only by the prints of his steps. Their silence spun itself out into invisible cords; the more time passed the harder the cords were to break. Words had to be chosen carefully - too trivial and they would stand out to ridicule, audible or not. Of too much import and they… stuck.

Why. Child's question. Why is the sky blue. Why've we got to fight if we wash off in that fountain. Why did Moo turn out the way he did. Why would anyone want to follow him. Why do people freeze inside.

"The Salamanders hated it up here," said Gray Wolf.

Centaur firmly restrained the laugh that rose past his stuck throat. To say something like what he had said, and then to speak of the Salamanders. "Did they?"

"It was probably the cold. But the Black Worms and the Mocks were already settled in further south, and Undine liked her part to herself. That was how it worked out to start with."

"To start with?"

"After…" He frowned. "I don't remember exactly. I think I wanted to annoy you three."

For a long time - ever since he'd first met Captain Salamander - Centaur had suspected just that. Now that it was straight-out admitted, he was at a loss for a response. Before the silence could spin out again he settled for, "I thought so."

Gray Wolf settled back into the snow. "Heh."

At least the others shouldn't be missing Centaur. Even when they were growing up he had a propensity for going off for hours at a stretch; when he'd announced his walk that night Celious and Dragoon had looked at him and at each other with mutual knowledge and then saw him off with casual waves. He'd nodded back and gone off, though he hadn't actually meant for this to be one of those times. A half hour or so out, another half hour back only a little after the others would have turned in, then rest in preparation for the next day's trek - that was his intention. Well, this certainly wasn't what he had intended to do, either.

"I didn't understand," said Gray Wolf.

"Your pardon?"

"We heard the stories. I thought one or the other had to be exaggerated - strength or honor." Gray Wolf shook his head. "Then we took your town, and it turned out neither was." After some effort, Centaur gave up trying to think of what he might say to that - no matter if that would mean the two of them standing there the rest of the night. But Gray Wolf went on, filling the spaces Centaur left empty. "I thought I would figure it out, eventually. I didn't. Then I thought… might as well leave it alone."

That makes two of us.

"I thought if I went on poking at it, I might actually convince you to give it up." He laughed. At least before his laughter had a shadow of humor. "Then where would I be?"

Yes - where would we be?

After his home had become something that could be labeled with the all-purpose title of "ruins" he had wanted to kill Gray Wolf as the latter stalked away surrounded by his Cabalos entourage, confident that they could do nothing - and nearly worse, being right. Centaur was not the only one to feel it; he had turned from the sight of the departing pack in time to see Dragoon raise his ax.

All three of them had moved at once. All three had hissed involuntarily as recent hard knocks were aggravated and Celious and Centaur's grips on Dragoon's arm went tighter than they'd meant to. He looked from side to side and then at his entrapped arm. Damn it, what are you doing? Let go! He had the presence of mind to keep his voice low; it would suit none of them to have Gray Wolf witness this.

You can't do that now, said Celious. Not now that it's over.

Like hell it's over. Like hell it is.

Centaur felt something strange under his hand, identified it near-automatically, and tried not to think about what it was. It's not done. And even if you strike him, Dragoon, the Cabalos -

Who cares about them? We're ready this time.

No, said Celious. We're not. We can't just… do that.

Why not? They haven't got any problem with it.

But we are not them. Centaur released Dragoon's arm and began rubbing at the flakes of dried blood that had stuck to his hand. We cannot allow ourselves to fall to their level.

As he spoke, Celious let go as well. Dragoon stared at his upraised ax blade for a moment, then lowered his arm. They watched the pack leave for a minute more, then returned to the emptied streets.

Gray Wolf lowered his head to rest atop his crossed front paws, keeping eye contact as he did. "I want to hate him."

"But you can't, I take it."

People said things like look at me when I'm talking to you, but whenever someone actually did it, and kept doing it, the effect became disconcerting. "I know well enough what he was doing. I ought to know."

"Then…?"

"Then I remember. It's different."

"How so?" Centaur could feel the harshness of his voice as if it were being pressed against his hands. Moo was demonstrably not the great equalizer some of the more innovative scholars had interpreted him as before he rose again and they were proven so terribly wrong.

"The way he acted… but you wouldn't know."

The Moo that visited Centaur's dreams for years before the real monster's rising had been the breathtaking black dragon in the children's book now stashed on a shelf back home. As he'd never seen the real monster, Centaur's dream-image was still that dragon. "True. I would not."

"You would think he actually gave a damn, the way he acted."

I never intended to be pulled into something like this. But I am here, all the same. What am I to do about it? "You would?"

"I would. I did." Gray Wolf looked away. "Heh. Wish I could pin everything on him. That'd be simple enough. 'All his fault, 's all his fault, he mucked about in my head and made me do it. He made me do all that.'" Centaur had to subdue both a frown and a rather morbid smile. "Tiger thought that was what happened. Maybe he didn't want to know. But if I hadn't wanted to believe what Moo said - if I hadn't I would have told him Tiger didn't do that. He never would have done that."

"Done… what, exactly?"

"I damn well grew up with him," said Gray Wolf, still not looking at him, "and someone says he ran away, left me behind, and I swallow it just like that. I can't very well hate Moo for lying about that if I wanted to believe what he said, can I?"

Centaur spoke carefully. "That would be true enough… but I doubt what you tell me is everything there is to it."

He might have flinched again; if he did, it was a very small one. "What else is it you want me to tell?"

That did it. "No. I believe the question is what is it you want me to tell you?" This time the flinch was unmistakable. "You have told me this, and what is it that you expect me to do about it? Listen, and go?"

"Yes," said Gray Wolf. "That."

"How is it that you understood my code well enough that you could use it the way you did, and you could not understand that I could not simply leave after hearing such things? No," said Centaur as he realized, "You understood that as well, did you not? You knew." Gray Wolf nodded. "I ask you again, what do you want from me?"

When Gray Wolf spoke, he turned back to face Centaur. "I guess I might have told Tiger, but he's… well… I'd rather not."

"Go on."

"You - you're the honorable one, and then…" He did something rather close to a shrug. "Then you told me to wait. I thought that meant something." The next words came out as if mentally measured and divided to keep them from jumbling into and ahead of one another; right then Gray Wolf sounded years younger. "Should I go on to Cairos, then?"

No. You should not go on to Cairos. You should go and die, again. Centaur pushed the words back. They were too rough, he decided at first. When he came to deciding how they might be calmed he noticed that he was no longer sure if he really meant them. His reply, when it finally came, was just as measured out. "I do not see why not."

"You don't think Tiger-"

"I have no way of knowing. Neither will you, unless you discover it for yourself."

Gray Wolf was obviously on the verge of saying he did already know, but he pushed it back as well. "All right. All right. Thank you."

"Might I ask you-"

"Go on. What?"

"When you said 'if you had just stayed dead,' and then stopped… what did you mean by that?"

He nodded. "It would've been perfect."

"Perfect?"

"He'd be upset for a while, but that way we could just think, if only. That way we could pretend that if only I'd lived the first time everything would've sorted itself out. It wouldn'tve, but we wouldn't have to know." He laughed again. "Figures it couldn't be that easy."

Centaur was speaking before he was quite sure what he meant to say. "Should things fail to work out with your brother, you will be welcome at… my house…" He trailed off, grateful he had gone out alone. Gray Wolf drew back for a moment, eyes wide. So. They were both surprised. Was that better?

"You didn't say that just to be… polite," said Gray Wolf. "Not even you could have. You meant that. Didn't you?"

"Yes," said Centaur. It was all he could say.

"I'll be going, then."

"Good luck to you." The words took a little less forcing than he'd anticipated.

"I'd tell you the same if I had any." Centaur nodded back and began to turn away.

"Wait."

He stopped and half-turned. "Yes?"

"You did mean it?"

"Did I?"

"About being welcome?"

"Yes. Yes, I did mean it."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Only if Tiger won't take me."

"If…"

"If."

"Good night."

"Good night."

The only one up by the time he got back to the camp was Dragoon, standing watch. "You were right," said Centaur. "They did return."

END